Bernard Ebbers, the former chairman and chief executive of WorldCom, used millions of dollars in loans from the company for purposes that were never properly disclosed to shareholders - including the construction of a new home and gifts and loans to his friends and family, according to an interim report filed by a United States federal bankruptcy examiner.

The corporate loans to Mr Ebbers, eventually totalling more than $US400 million ($714 million), had been described in company records as having been provided to help Mr Ebbers meet margin calls on personal loans secured by his own WorldCom stock holdings.

This benefited WorldCom, the company had argued, by avoiding a forced sale of Mr Ebbers' shares, which would have depressed the stock price.

But the report filed on Monday says Mr Ebbers used $US27 million of the loans to pay personal and private business expenses, including $US1.8 million to build a new house, and $US3 million in gifts and loans to family and friends.

All told, it says, Mr Ebbers pledged his WorldCom stock to secure $US1 billion in loans for personal and business reasons. ");document.write("

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While three other former WorldCom executives have been indicted on federal charges related to the company's financial manoeuvres, so far Mr Ebbers has not been formally accused of wrongdoing. But experts said that the disclosures from the bankruptcy report raised new legal perils for Mr Ebbers, whose actions at WorldCom are being investigated by federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reid Weingarten, a lawyer for Mr Ebbers, declined to comment on the disclosures in the report.

The report, written by Dick Thornburgh, the bankruptcy examiner and a former US attorney-general, indicates that the company's decision to give loans to Mr Ebbers had not been approved by the full board and that some directors were unaware he had received the money until after it was spent.

But even after the board was notified of how the money was actually used, the report says, the company did nothing to make WorldCom's financial filings clearly reflect that millions of dollars were used for purposes that provided no benefit to the corporation at all.

The report details the events at WorldCom that culminated in June with the company's disclosing a multi-billion-dollar accounting fraud, and then filing for bankruptcy protection in July.

The report is highly critical of Mr Ebbers, other members of management, WorldCom's directors, its outside accountants, and Wall Street analysts.